


Be A Candle Or The Night

by speedy



Series: Phoenix [4]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Dark!Hermione, Gen, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23701828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speedy/pseuds/speedy
Summary: Hogwarts was over. The war was over. There didn’t seem to be much use in continuing the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry any longer, especially as they seemed to something in common.
Series: Phoenix [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/44822
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Be A Candle Or The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Phoenix!verse, EWE, post-DH 3-4 years, prior to Karma. Title is from Yoda in one of the Star Wars EU books. Chronologically, the first Phoenix!verse story. I had intended it to be the last published, but… *shrugs*

“It’s a good thing you’re doing, Miss Granger.”

Hermione spun around, not expecting the voice behind her. It was the most polite she’d ever seen Greg Goyle.

“Leanne told me about you and Katie.”

Leanne Moon had been bitten by Fenrir Greyback in his rampage immediately after the war ended. The oppressive werewolf laws made it impossible to work a legitimate job, so she, like many other “undesirable” women, ended up a prostitute in Knockturn Alley. Katie had offered her meager wages from Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, but Leanne had refused, too proud to take charity. So Katie started buying Leanne’s time. Once Hermione had failed to repeal the laws, she had as well.

“So you’re one of her...”

“Friends,” Greg finished, looking slighted annoyed. “I like Leanne. She shouldn’t have to sell herself.”

“No one should,” Hermione agreed. “Victims shouldn’t be punished because Greyback was a monster.”

“I wrote some letters to support your law. The Prophet didn’t print mine. I wrote you, too.”

She didn’t remember a letter from him. All she remembered was so much hate mail. “I never saw it. We got a lot of letters. We ended up having a couple elves go through it all.”

“I don’t understand why Potter didn’t vote for it. Wasn’t he close with Professor Lupin? And you’re his best friend.”

She grimaced. Harry was a sensitive issue. His decision to chase after Dolohov instead of attending  
the Wizengamot session to vote for her werewolf rights bill, as he promised, still made her blood boil. Without the Boy Who Lived’s support, her bill failed spectacularly, taking her Ministry career with it. She couldn’t deliver Harry Potter’s vote, what good was she? She’d left the Ministry for Gringotts within the year.

She put those thoughts out of her mind. “Almost sounding like a Hufflepuff there, Mr. Goyle,” she teased.

“The hat wanted to put me in Hufflepuff.”

She wondered how much would be different if they’d all allowed the hat to sort them where it wanted to. She smiled wistfully. “I was supposed to be in Ravenclaw. Harry was supposed to be in Slytherin.”

Goyle smiled sincerely. He held out his hand. “I’m Greg.”

Hogwarts was over. The war was over. There didn’t seem to be much use in continuing the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry any longer, especially as they seemed to something in common.

She shook his hand. “Hermione.”

* * *

Between the three of them, they’d spent a great deal of time and money keeping Leanne off the streets. In the end, it made no difference. She was found strangled in a dark corner of Knockturn Alley. The Hit Wizards investigating were less than enthusiastic. No humans involved. The Ministry of Magic- most of the Wizarding world even- didn’t care about the murder of a werewolf whore. They cared even less when Harry, working on his own time, connected Leanne’s murder and two others to the heir of a prestigious family. They didn’t care when he started killing Muggle prostitutes. Harry’s hands were tied.

“He can’t get away with this! I won’t let him!” Greg shouted.

Hermione and Katie shared a look. Greg would get caught. Thinking wasn’t his strong point.

“Calm down, Greg. Yelling won’t solve anything,” Hermione said gently.

“If the Ministry won’t do anything, we should. Who knows how many women he’s going to kill, how many he already has?”

Hermione nodded her agreement. “He has to be stopped.”

The Ministry was looking the other way. The Muggles wouldn’t be allowed to arrest him, even if they had the evidence. Murder was pretty much the only option they had.

She looked at Katie. “An eye for an eye.”

The other Muggleborn nodded. “We can’t use the killing curse,” Katie said. “We’ll be Kissed for sure.”

Plans were starting to form in Hermione’s mind. “I know a few archaic butchering spells. They’re meant for animals, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t work on humans.”

Greg sneered. “Butchered like the animal he is. I like it.”

Katie bit her thumb nervously. “I bet George would give one of us an alibi. Sorry, Greg.”

Hermione brightened. The mental plans started solidifying. “No, it works. Greg and I have made the most noise, we’d be the most obvious suspects. It would only take one of us to kidnap him. Greg gives one of us an alibi, a public one, and George the other. We kill the bastard later and dump him in the London sewers. If he gets found, it’ll take Scotland Yard months to come up with anything identifiable and that’s if they even have a DNA sample to match to!”

“There are plenty of girls in the Alley that would help us, no questions asked,” Greg suggested. “Might not even charge us. They’re all scared they’ll be next.”

* * *

Knockturn Alley on a Saturday night was a busy place. The two pubs- one catering to non-humans and the other popular with dark wizards- were full; the prostitutes advertised their trade in the shadows and wherever they could find a semi-private place.

Greg’s prediction was correct. When word got around what they needed and why, several girls came forward to help. Two women were chosen to take Polyjuice- one to take Katie’s place at the shop, one would go out to a very public dinner with Greg.

The murdering bastard was in the Alley every Saturday, without fail. He’d had his eye on the same girl for a few weeks. The girl in question had no problem giving up her hair and letting Katie take her place. Hermione “borrowed” Harry’s invisibility cloak and hide in a dark alcove near Borgin and Burkes. Katie led the bastard right to her location. Before he could even pull out his money bag, Hermione stunned him and transfigured him into a rat- after plucking a hair from his head.

“Nice form.”

“I thought it appropriate.”

“It looks like that rat the Weasleys had.”

“He does, doesn’t he?”

Hermione transfigured her robes to look like his. It wouldn’t fool anyone under inspection, but it was good enough for their purposes. She took a sip and morphed into a monster. “I feel dirty.”

“It’s only an hour.”

“Meet you at the abattoir.”

“Three hours. I’m going to relieve Gwen at the shop as soon as the Polyjuice wears off.”

“We’ve got a scene to make first. Wouldn’t do to have Gwen take the blame.”

She stepped out into the Alley, Katie on her heels. “Give me my money. You bastard!” Katie shouted, loud enough to attract attention, including a patrol wizard.

“I’m not giving you another Knut, bitch!” Hermione yelled back, walking towards Diagon Alley. Passing the patrol wizard, she shrugged. “Whores,” she said conspiratorially. The patrol wizard just nodded in understanding.

Hermione left the Wizarding world, into the Muggle. Their chosen slaughterhouse was an overflow section of the Victorian era sewer system for London. By the time Greg and Katie arrived, their prey was bound to a conjured meat hook, begging for his life. The spells were bloody and very messy. They had silenced him, but his screaming was obvious.

Greg was eager, just as he had been at Hogwarts. Katie didn’t have the stomach for murder and vomited afterwards. Hermione felt little, other than necessity, even as she disposed of the corpse. This wasn’t her first kill, that had been during the war, but it was her first cold-blooded murder.

She made a mental note to research less messy methods.

* * *

“You know,” Katie said, playing with her glass of fire whisky. “Leanne was just one of a lot of girls, stuck selling themselves in Knockturn Alley. There’s no protection. The Ministry won’t lift a finger to help them.”

“The Ministry doesn’t help anybody,” Greg agreed. “Never has.”

Hermione poured herself another glass. “I tried to change things, I really did.”

“Bloody Potter,” Katie and Greg said at the same time.

“I don’t know what else to do. I know most of them don’t have anywhere else to go, no one to depend on.”

“Too bad the Burning Bird shut down. The girls could at least be off the streets.”

Katie and Hermione shared a look. “What’s the Burning Bird?” Hermione asked.

“The brothel that was in Knockturn Alley, down by the place with dead birds hanging in the window. The sign used to catch fire every hour. I always liked it.”

A feeling of foreboding slowly trickled down her spine. “I thought prostitution was illegal in Wizarding Britain.”

“Brothels aren’t. At least they didn’t used to be. I don’t know about now. The Ministry shut the Burning Bird down because the owner was supposedly hiding Death Eaters. I think they just took the opportunity to shut it. It’s always been owned by Muggleborns.”

In that moment, Hermione could see her path laid out before her. Maybe Tom Riddle wasn’t so far off after all. Nothing gets done inside the Ministry, unless you were a pureblood from the right family. She wasn’t. She needed to find another way, a less legal method. Where there were prostitutes, there were men cheating on their wives. Good, moral men, who didn’t want anyone to know they weren’t good or moral- who might do what she said to keep their secrets. She’d tried to change the world from the inside and was thrown out for her efforts. Maybe it was time to try the shadows.

“I need to do some research.”


End file.
